Crypto may be rich in onchain data, but it is still poor at investor communication. That is the clearest takeaway from a new Novora study covering more than 150 of the largest protocols, which argues that the sector’s investor relations problem is no longer about missing data, but about failing to package existing data into something institutional capital can actually use.
The strongest news angle is the gap itself. Novora says 91% of protocols generate trackable revenue, yet only 8% publish a token holder report, only 3% maintain a dedicated IR hub, and less than 1% disclose market maker terms. In other words, crypto has reached the point where transparency is technically possible almost everywhere, but still rare where it matters most for allocators.
The data exists, but IR still barely does
Novora’s report is built around 13 disclosure metrics across 150-plus protocols and frames the problem as structural rather than accidental. It says most protocols still treat investor communication as a mix of social posts and Discord chatter rather than a formal capital-markets function, despite the rise of onchain analytics and third-party data coverage.
That is what makes the report more than a generic transparency complaint. The research is effectively saying crypto no longer has an excuse to behave like an information-poor market. The revenue is visible, the treasury flows are increasingly trackable, and third-party infrastructure already exists. The failure now is in organization, disclosure discipline and investor-facing presentation. This is an analytical reading of the report’s core framing.
Third-party data coverage is strong, but protocols are not using it well
One of the most important findings in the study is that external data infrastructure has matured much faster than protocol communication. Novora says 95% of assessed protocols have meaningful coverage on Dune, 93% on Token Terminal, 88% on DefiLlama, 85% on Artemis, and 42% on Blockworks. It also says 72% of protocols are covered by four or more of those five platforms.
That means the market is not suffering from a lack of observable information. It is suffering from a lack of translation. Protocols can often be analyzed by third parties more easily than they can explain themselves to token holders and institutional investors. This is one of the report’s most important implications, even if Novora states it more bluntly: “The data is there. Reporting doesn’t.”
Market maker opacity remains nearly total
The most striking disclosure gap in the report is around market structure. Novora says less than 1% of protocols disclose market maker terms and identifies Meteora as the only protocol in the entire dataset that has publicly disclosed information about its market-making arrangements.
That finding matters because market maker relationships are standard disclosure territory in traditional public markets. In crypto, by contrast, the report suggests these arrangements remain almost entirely hidden even for major tokens traded on large exchanges with sophisticated investor audiences. For institutions trying to understand token liquidity, float behavior and trading support, that is a major blind spot. This is an analytical conclusion based on Novora’s findings.
DeFi leads on transparency, while L1s lag
Novora says disclosure practices vary sharply by sector. DEXes, lending protocols and perpetuals rank ahead of other categories on several transparency measures, while L1 and L2 networks lag despite their larger market capitalizations. In the sector table, DEXes show 98% revenue data availability, lending protocols 96%, and perps 100%, while L1/L2 projects fall well behind on other disclosure measures such as quarterly reporting, token reports and value-accrual communication.
The report’s explanation is notable. It says the “foundation governance model” creates an IR vacuum for L1s, because no one really owns the investor communication function. That is a sharper critique than it may look at first glance: Novora is effectively arguing that some of the biggest crypto networks are among the least mature when it comes to capital-markets communication.
Token Transparency Framework adoption is rising, but still small
Novora also tracks early adoption of the Token Transparency Framework, which Blockworks launched in June 2025 and presented to the SEC alongside Jito. According to the report, 13 protocols have filed so far, equal to about 9% adoption, up from zero in June 2025. The list includes Meteora, Jito, Jupiter, dYdX, Morpho, Raydium, Aerodrome, Maple, Euler, EtherFi, Marinade, Gains Network and MetaDAO.
That is progress, but it is still a small minority. Novora notes that the filers skew heavily toward Solana and revenue-generating DeFi projects, with zero L1s, zero L2s, and zero infrastructure protocols having filed. So while the framework is beginning to gain traction, it still looks more like an early signaling tool for a handful of protocols than a market-wide standard.
Value accrual is becoming a dividing line
Another major section of the report focuses on tokenholder economics. Novora says 38% of protocols have some form of active value accrual, meaning a mechanism that returns economic value to token holders beyond governance rights. It identifies six models, including direct fee distribution, buyback-and-burn, staking revenue share, conditional buybacks, ve-model distributions and governance-only structures with no economic return.
The more important conclusion is performance-related. Novora says governance-only tokens averaged -51% one-year returns versus -32% for tokens with active value accrual, implying roughly a 19 percentage point gap. The report argues that the exact mechanism matters less than the basic existence of one, because any active value-accrual model appears to outperform governance-only structures over the measured period.
The report’s core message is really about institutional readiness
Novora’s methodology is intentionally simple: all metrics are binary, with no weighting and no subjective scoring. The report looks only at whether disclosure exists or does not exist across metrics such as IR hubs, revenue segmentation, token holder reports, market maker disclosure, exchange strategy disclosure and investor channels.
That design makes the message harder to dismiss. This is not a stylistic critique of whether protocol communications are polished enough. It is a market-readiness critique: if protocols want institutional capital, many still lack even the most basic disclosure architecture investors would expect in public markets. This is an analytical inference from the methodology and headline findings.
Why it matters for crypto
- Crypto increasingly wants to be treated like a mature capital market, but Novora’s numbers suggest the communication layer still looks much closer to an early-stage internet culture than a serious investor market. The biggest gap is no longer access to information. It is disciplined disclosure.
- The report also reinforces a broader market trend: token value is increasingly being judged not only by narrative and community, but by revenue visibility, value accrual and the ability to present those economics in a format allocators can understand. Protocols that fail to do that may be leaving capital on the table even when their onchain businesses are working. This is an analytical conclusion based on the report’s findings.
What to watch next
- The first thing to watch is whether the Token Transparency Framework expands beyond its current cluster of Solana and DeFi adopters. If it starts pulling in L1s, infrastructure projects and major Ethereum-native protocols, it could become a more meaningful market standard.
- The second is whether market maker disclosure starts to move at all. Right now, Novora’s report makes that category look like crypto’s single weakest transparency point, and any change there would be a serious signal that token markets are maturing.
- The third is whether more protocols start treating IR as an actual function rather than a side effect of community management. If that does not happen, crypto may continue generating institutional-grade data without ever fully converting it into institutional-grade trust. This is an analytical inference based on the report’s core findings.